The gap between the rich and the poor has lingered to the broad levels since the time Memorial. The economic inequality is also referred to as the gap between the rich, and the poor, the wealth inequality or the income inequality contains dissimilarities in the distribution of the income and wealth (Oishi, Kesebir " Diener, 2011). In general, the term Inequality refers to the gap between the rich and the poor and the rising taxes on the individuals and different groups in the society. Even though a bit of income equality can be a source of motivation for people to do better, however, looking closely we can see that the income and wealth inequality is ruining not just our society but our country as well. Every single person who is trying very hard for the ends to meet in his house is against income inequality, and those who work so hard to be in favor of the unequal distribution of wealth are the ones who are earning more money than they can ever spend.
In the paper, we will be discussing and assessing how the high inequality and the unequal distribution of wealth have negatively impacted and affected the society and not just a specific country. We will be discussing some very strong point of inequality and how it had adversely affected the people mostly the poor and the middle class. Some of the points against a high level of inequality include the health, politics, education, jobs, as well as the overall quality of life and the living standards of the people. These points will be explained in details and how the poor end up in not only in slums but also in jail due to an increase in crimes rates because of the uneven distribution of wealth and inequality.
Impact of Inequality and Why We are Against it?
Sometimes inequality can be advantageous for not only the society but also the government. Notwithstanding, some market researchers found observational proof of an unconstructive relationship between the unequal distribution of wealth and the society (Oishi, Kesebir " Diener, 2011). A high gap in income inequality shows a high level of poverty. With an expensive rate of living and a small number of earnings, it becomes challenging to survive in such societies. The loaded and prosperous people keep getting richer, and the poor people are unable to do much as they are the ones who are slaves to rich people and work day and night like beggars in return for a small amount salary (Oishi, Kesebir " Diener, 2011).
Harvard philosopher T. M. Scanlon wrote in one of his articles that there are four reasons why he is against income inequality (Scanlon, 2014) and those are pretty much why everyone else including me is against the unequal distribution of wealth as well. One of the very first point that he mentioned was that the uneven distribution of wealth and inequality gives the more affluent people too much power in their hands to exploit the poor people. Since the wealthy people are the ones hiring the poor and the ones belonging from the middle class, they get to decide what work will be given and they will dictate how their life will be like while working for them (Scanlon, 2014).
Another reason he mentioned in his article (Scanlon, 2014) was that the income inequality could weaken and destabilize the political institutions and organizations as the parties depend on wealth for their campaigns and promotions. Since the rich people would be sponsoring and giving the parties money, they would have an advantage over the poor parties as well as the people, and the rich would undoubtedly win, hence weakening and negatively impacting the entire political system.
Unequal distribution of wealth can ruin the lives of people as well as the entire society we live in as the poor in our society will always be at a disadvantage since birth and rich would always have an advantage over us (Solt, 2008). The advantage rich would have over us would be in relation to the jobs, clothes, education as well as their living conditions. The rich would always be preferred over the poor, even if the poor have a lot more skills and is more honest and has integrity way more than the rich, the poor will be rejected in most cases. This would eventually lead to rich people getting the best jobs, living the glamorous life as well as getting the best of everything, whereas the poor would still be in slums working at minimum wage unable to properly pay for his rent or educate his children (Solt, 2008).
Sociologists focus more on the feelings of the society more than the economic and statistics of the country as a whole. So according to the sociologists, they claim that higher inequality leads to feelings of envy, depression, high level of distrust in people leading to crimes like murder and robbery (Castells-Quintana " Royuela, 2014). The disparity creates strong competition between the rich and the poor trying to overcome their poorness and moving to higher social class, which might lead to a poor man using illegal means and methods to climb the social ladder looking for success.
According to researchers, it was seen that a society of high inequality leads to an increase in the levels of health. For example, the life expectancy rate of rich is longer than those of the poor people in a society. Mental illness, as well as mortality rate, is very high in poor than it is in rich leading to a conclusion that society with a high inequality leads to a difference in health-related issues. It is also noticed that people with the highly unequal distribution of wealth are more likely to be depressed and a higher possibility of schizophrenia. This can also be seen that poor have a high level of diseases than the rich as the rich have money for medicines and poor people do not have such option. As a result, the chances of diseases increase and the mortality rate as well (Castells-Quintana " Royuela, 2014).
Another point of inequality and how it has affected our society is the amount of debt and success factor. It can be seen due to higher inequality, the rich gets richer and poor gets poor unless there is something left of them. For a poor or middle-class man to start a business, it the formalities and process are quite lengthy, and there are high chances that he might not even get the loan he signed up for to start a business or increase his living standards(Coibion, Gorodnichenko, Kudlyak, " Mondragon, 2014). However, it is very easy for a rich man to apply for a loan as he has a lot of things to place in exchange for money for starting a business. This creates a sense of discrimination as well as envy and increases depression, lowers the living standards of the poor as well as gives the rich person a chance to become richer and powerful (Coibion, Gorodnichenko, Kudlyak, " Mondragon, 2014).
Conclusion
Income inequality is the uneven distribution of wealth and income, and they are way too high amongst the rich and very low in poor. In the paper, we discussed the negative impacts of inequality and on the society. According to me, I think to keep other factors constant, it can be seen, and it is researched as well that inequality does have a negative impact on the society. The negative impact is not only fixed to one area or part of the society, but it covers a lot of other elements as well. High uneven distribution of wealth impacts the society regarding education, wealth and income, health, jobs, living standards as well as regarding politics and debts and mortgages (Lopez, 2011). The high level of income inequality just negatively impact the society, it destroys the society.
However, there is only one solution to overcome the problem, and that is to reduce the income difference and inequality between the rich and the poor and bring at least if not the exact equal distribution of wealth. Reducing the inequality is not a simple day to day task, it can take years or even decades to overcome the problem as there are so many other factors associated and related to income inequality as well as the entire government and the country.
The researchers noticed that for the society and the entire country to be much more successful and for it to prosper, a direct method or solution of reducing the distribution of wealth gap should be used (Lopez, 2011). It makes more sense to use and apply a direct approach which can make this happen even if it takes a little longer than necessary. A direct approach is better and more appropriate because of the problems with the society. Education, health, politics, living standards of the people as well as the mortality rate and debt rate as well as jobs, all these outcomes cannot be easily corrected and improved individually. This is why it is more suitable and fitting for a government to consider a direct as well as a proper method to reduce the gap and make the society a better and happier place.
References
Castells-Quintana, D., " Royuela, V. (2014). Tracking positive and negative effects of inequality on long-run growth. Regional Quantitative Analysis Research Group, 14(1), 1-29
Coibion, O., Gorodnichenko, Y., Kudlyak, M., " Mondragon, J. (2014). Greater inequality and household borrowing? New evidence from household data. Retrieved from VOX CEPR's Policy Portal: https://voxeu.org/article/inequality-and-household-debt-new-evidence
Lopez, L. (2011). This Is How Income Inequality Destroys Societies. Business Insider,
Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/the-negative-effects-of-income-inequality-on-society-2011-11
Oishi, S., Kesebir, S., " Diener, E. (2011). Income inequality and happiness. Psychological
science, 22(9), 1095-1100.
Scanlon, T. M. (2014). The 4 biggest reasons why inequality is bad for society. IDEAS.TED.COM, Retrieved from https://ideas.ted.com/the-4-biggest-reasons-why-inequality-is-bad-for-society/
Solt, F. (2008). Economic inequality and democratic political engagement. American Journal of
Political Science, 52(1), 48-60.
